FILM: The Hobbit Desolation of Smaug

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

An Unexpected Journey was not a great film. But it captured me and sucked me into Middle Earth none the less. That's why I went to see Desolation of Smaug. Despite the liberties taken by Jackson and co. with the wonderful Hobbit book, I wanted to go back into Middle Earth.

But The Desolation of Smaug didn't grab me and suck me in at any point in its two and a half hours. I never got to go back to Middle Earth this time.

The world of Middle Earth just isn't in Desolation of Smaug. It's been replaced by some strange hyper-fantasy world. New Zealand, which with its incredibly beautiful landscapes made a couple of cameos. But apparently it wasn't good enough for Jackson. Every vista was digitally mastered and enhanced to the point that it looked like nothing beautiful. Got a nice vista? Not good enough! Let's replace the sky with this purple and orange monstrosity. Flyover shots of Middle Earth locations like Lake Town looked weightless and cartoony, with no texture, no anchor with reality. This is the first time in a Peter Jackson Tolkien film that Middle Earth feels like a movie set rather than a leaving breathing world. No time or care is taken to appreciate the texture of the world. Texture is what made "Fellowship of the Ring" such a special film in terms of Tolkien adaptations. Texture is what made An Unexpected Journey a worthwhile experience despite its numerous flaws.

It's especially disappointing because The Hobbit could have been one three hour movie. But it was stretched out three two and a half our films. So what's been done with this additional time? Surely we'll get more texture! More time to enjoy the subtleties of Middle Earth, the characters perhaps? A few more seconds here and there spent lingering on character moments? Lingering on the relationships between the characters and Middle Earth? Watching them enjoy Middle Earth cuisine and drink. Watching them have conversations that don't expose plot, but paint an ambiance and context for the world in which Jackson has taken us?

Texture? Fuck that!

Let's pile on new scenes and new characters and action and fast paced editing. Let's cut out the most endearing elements of the book: the characters manipulating one another, the strategy, the conniving, the exploring. Let's instead spend that time in whizz-bang action sequences that function as five minute transitions between scenes. Things happen, things happen, and more things happen.

In my humble opinion, the most successful of the Middle Earth films, The Fellowship of the Ring, had entire sequences where the plot made little forward progress. Instead, the world of Middle Earth was painted in with delightful texture and trivial mythology and lore. It felt superfluous. It put the average joe to sleep. But if you appreciated Tolkien's descriptive language, if you appreciated the world, if you dreamed of living in Middle Earth, it made every moment of the film thereafter that much more spectacular and fantastic. An entire shot in The Fellowship of the Ring was dedicated to just watching a ring fall. Production and post production crew and artists spent time making a ring appear and sound far more weighty than any similar ring. It was a sequence that did little to advance the plot. But it textured the world.

We find no such attention to detail or texture in The Desolation of Smaug. Our view into Middle Earth is limited to a couple of heavily digitally made up flyover shots of New Zealand. Even the awe-inspiring vistas of his home country are no longer worthy of being Middle Earth to Jackson. Not with out hyper-colorizing at least!

The folks at Weta have all but given up as well it seems. Everything is solidly executed. But the art direction, for the first time in Weta's Tolkien history, missed the boat. Desolation of Smaug is Weta's first generic fantasy depiction of Middle Earth. Everything is either uninspired, or down right ugly. The final act of the film in Erebor is a mess. The design is forgettable (compare that to the jaw-droppingly haunting Mines of Moria). The lighting is strange, illogical. And topping it all off, you can feel the visual effects guys struggling to make the poor art look passable. And my heart goes out to them, we've all been in a place where we have to bring shitty art to life in a time crunch.

The symptoms of their suffering are clear: much of Erebor looks like shiny plastic of 1990s rendering caliber. And it's all topped off with a spectacular golden statue that splatters into molten metal in one of the most laughable sequences of CGI in a blockbuster since Air Force One crashed into the ocean in 1997. It was pre-visualization quality bad.

Smaug himself was passable. He had a grand total of one expression. Again, poor art. No one will remember him in ten years.

Finally, Bilbo is missing for most of the movie, and Howard Shore wrote a strong but also at times disconnected score for the film. For example scenes that begged for a more understated approach had blaring orchestras turned down in volume rather than in orchestration, and a lot of times fast rhythmic ideas underscored scenes and shots were not a whole lot was taking place, leading to a sense of cheesiness. I'm not sure why the music didn't fit the film like a glove, but it works much better on album than it does in the movie itself.

At the end of the day, easily the worst Peter Jackson film set in "Middle Earth". Though it really wasn't set in Middle Earth, just a generic impostor of Middle Earth.

Blume Score: 40%

As of today, I'd rank the movies like so:

1. FotR 97%

2. TT 92%

3. ROtK 91%

4. AUJ 78%

5. DoS 40%

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I can't really say I agree. I felt I was back. And Erebor felt more real to be then I did in the first film. And more real then the goblin caves.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Faleel 5,359]

Because, as everybody knows, there are no mountain sides in New-Zealand...

Stupid Jackson, this could have been the first middle-earth film with a real mountainside!

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

I can't really say I agree. I felt I was back. And Erebor felt more real to be then I did in the first film. And more real then the goblin caves.

I honestly don't see it. At what point did you feel like you were in Middle Earth instead of a variety show of random 5 second shots of generic fantasy-land?

At what point did you feel Tolkien's incredibly descriptive language and imagery was realized in cinematic form? Did you ever feel like you could taste the beer or stew someone is having? Did you even see beer? Did Dol Guldur feel like anything more than a movie set?

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

The descriptive language is far less present in The Hobbit anyway.

I agree that the film is flawed and the Beorn and Mirkwood scenes feel truncated.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Faleel 5,359]

It was so good, some of it had to be dialed out!

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Faleel 5,359]

Yeah, and the scene with Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker!

[KK 3,307]

I agree that a major issue of this film is the look of it all.

When you finally get to see true New-Zealand vistas (when the characters are in the desolation of Smaug, the actual location), two hours into the film, it feels like a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, it is short lived, and we're quickly back on studio to have them face a fake moutain side to find the hidden door. Because, as everybody knows, there are no mountain sides in New-Zealand...

The most hilarious aspect of that scene is that when the moonlight shines on the mountain side, it's all CG. i guess PJ wasn't satisfied with the fake mountain side created on set...

Agreed. Blume and Quint raised some good points I wanted to write-up a complementary passage of my own to, but I never had the chance. And although my opinion of this film is not as harsh as the two of them, the same core problem ticks me off sometimes. Essentially, Middle-Earth has become nothing more than a video-game environment rendered on a green screen. It's depressing, it really is. It makes me miss the LotR films where green screens and digital environments were only secondary to real sets, and grand New Zealand vistas. Where is the scope? Where is the Tolkien world I at one point could have easily believed in Jackson's films?

Having said that, when you stop looking at DoS as another LotR film/companion, it's actually the more entertaining film (compared to AUJ), albeit a more flawed one, but still something I'd come back to due to performances and certain highlights. I liked Laketown by the way, if only for the reason that it looks more believable than most of the other sets, and I thought Erebor was more believable than AUJ. In AUJ, Erebor looked like there was a lack of creativity in the art design side of it. But I really don't know....this film could easily fail to hold up a month from now, and I could end up hating it as much as you do Blume because this is just so FRUSTRATING. There are merits in there that I can't ignore, but the flaws just make me want to slap Jackson in the face with a dead fish.

And no less than some of the best parts of it!

Can't help but think about how much better the spiders and the barrels scenes would have felt, had the music been left untouched.

The score pisses me off in film, still. Blume, I don't think its a case of mis-scoring on Shore's part, it's a matter of editing/butchering the recorded music after the recording sessions. Once again, Peter Jackson can't seem to get his film finished until it gets way too close to the release date, so extended/cut scenes need to re-arrange the recorded music. The Barrel Scene and the Spiders Sequence are two prime examples of how the music was butchered, which ultimately hurt the beats and pacing of the scenes. I guess we should have taken a hint when Conrad Pope was slyly hinting at what he and Shore thought of the final cut of the music in his fb post after the premiere night.

[Incanus 5,716]

I think somewhat along the same lines about the visuals in this film Blume. PJ somehow forgot that he had the actual Middle Earth standing in his backyard and resorted to a lot of posturing in front of a green screen in fake looking sets. I think it looks even worse in HFR and HD. Brings to mind an episode of Emmerdale as DoS looks just that awful to my eyes in HD. The Prancing Pony scene in particular.

I love how much care was put into production design of different cultures once more like Beorn's house, the Halls of the Elvenking and Lake Town and even Erebor (although I still question of the practicality of the hodgepodge of bridges without rails and yawning chasms reaching into mountain depths like it was a strange homage to GLs Coruscant from AOTC). I just wish there had been time to linger and indeed wallow a bit in the atmopshere of these miniature worlds instead of being rushed through everything in this film. Visual effects vary from subtle and brilliant to bloated and half baked (I am looking at you " giant golden fudge dwarf statue" and "pool of molten golden fugde"!).

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Incanus 5,716]

I love how much care was put into production design of different cultures once more like Beorn's house [...]

Yeah, but when you realize that Beorn's house isn't CG, you know something is not right....

Yeah...it really could have used more CGI because as we all know MORE CGI=BETTER.

Actually I think what Conrad Pope said about the film industry being now very "last minute" and people do not have to make binding decisions as technology allows for quick changes even at the last minute, the result is that things are not thoroughly thought out and through and thus such indecision affects multiple areas of the film production from design to final cut of the film (and of course music) in a more drastic way. When you don't have to commit to one direction and can hop from one foot to the other before the very last minute doesn't really sound like the best way to create films but rather a choppy and difficult one.

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

I love how much care was put into production design of different cultures once more like Beorn's house [...]

Yeah, but when you realize that Beorn's house isn't CG, you know something is not right....

Yeah...it really could have used more CGI because as we all know MORE CGI=BETTER.

Actually I think what Conrad Pope said about the film industry being now very "last minute" and people do not have to make binding decisions as technology allows for quick changes even at the last minute, the result is that things are not thoroughly thought out and through and thus such indecision affects multiple areas of the film production from design to final cut of the film (and of course music) in a more drastic way. When you don't have to commit to one direction and can hop from one foot to the other before the very last minute doesn't really sound like the best way to create films but rather a choppy and difficult one.

There may actually be empirical evidence to support that. My wife's research is actually focused in this "choice" area of behavioral economics. It's already been established that decision making is a very laborious process for the mind. Every decision you make drains you of substantial decision making "reserves." And the greater the number of choices the worse the effect, sometimes to the point of decision paralysis. If not paralysis, then the more decisions you make without taking a break and letting your mind and body rest, the worse your decisions become.

Interestingly, in the game industry realized this independently when designing games with choices. When you give players too many options they just sort of freeze up, or start doing some really dumb things. They start looking for shortcuts, or ways to avoid the decision, or make it in the least mentally taxing way. They start doing everything but playing the game before them just to avoid picking from 20 different weapons.

My wife would be quick to say, no one has studied filmmakers so it's unwise to extrapolate. But still, it's not too far fetched to imagine leaving all the big decisions for high-pressure 5 days before the film is being shipped to theaters will have negative consequences on the quality of the decisions made for the film.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

In another thread you said one of the responsibilities of a DP with a CGI film is setting limits. That's the problem with these movies. There is no one to impose any restrictions to what is possible. Or doesn't seem to be.

And if you look at his past films PJ doesn't have the organizational mind or the restrained to keep things properly focused when he has the availability of so many options.

That's a big contrast between him and a director he is often compared with. Steven Spielberg. Who plans his shoots very tightly, and as far as I know hasn't been over schedule or budget since 1941, and seems to have far more self control when it comes to the limitless options this digital age gives him.

[Incanus 5,716]

Spielberg is meticulousness itself when compared to Jackson. 1941 was such an embarrasment and slap on the wrist to Spielberg that he has ever since remebered his responsibilities and preps his movies very well and sticks quite closely to his script. Yet he is able to improvise shots on the set and take actors' suggestions into consideration but he rarely leaves things up until the very last minute like Jackson.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Gonna be interesting to compare the two directors if PJ does the Tintin sequel.

[Incanus 5,716]

PJ will be shooting pick-ups 5 minutes before the film delivery and using monkeys as motion capture reference for Jamie Bell and Andy Serkis so he doesn't have to fly them over to New Zealand.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

PJ has played Haddock before remember....

[Incanus 5,716]

PJ has played Haddock before remember....

Oh yeah! He will save a good deal in hiring actors and can have them only dub their voices once he has acted all the parts himself in the white metalframe sets.

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

Does anyone think del Toro was smart to distance himself from these films?

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Faleel 5,359]

( "pool of molten golden fugde"!).

Just curious, does anyone know what real Molten Gold looks like?

Almost all Images searches I have made come up with either CGI renders (which look alot like the Gold in DOS) or far off shots that look a lot like the scene in FOTR when the Rings are being forged, or the molten Gold looks like over exposed and pure white small blobs.

[Incanus 5,716]

( "pool of molten golden fugde"!).

Just curious, does anyone know what real Molten Gold looks like?

Almost all Images searches I have made come up with either CGI renders (which look alot like the Gold in DOS) or far off shots that look a lot like the scene in FOTR when the Rings are being forged, or the molten Gold looks like over exposed and pure white small blobs.

I think PJ was in a lose/lose situation with molten gold. Even if they had researched the stuff and had simulated it convincingly in CGI, it looks weird in the film just the same. Plus I would have thought gold in molten state would have to be red hot but then again a lake worth of that stuff might be a different thing.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

It probably would not look like gold at all. Like molten steel doesnt look like steel.

The problem fro me is that the whole statue idea really doesnt work. If you are gonna go that route. Why not just have a scene where they lure Smaug into the furnaces and dump the liquid gold on him...oh wait, that was in Alien 3!

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Great. Now I'm expecting Smaug to lay an egg inside Bilbo in TABA... and that is an encouraging thought...

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Quintus 5,399]

Does anyone think del Toro was smart to distance himself from these films?

He should never have left. I'm in no doubt we would have two far tighter movies, and a now completed Hobbit adventure. I'd also have liked to have seen his "controversial" Smaug design. I agree that Smaug was ultimately a disappointment - though for very different reasons than his visual appearance.

Lee - can't remember noticing any score atrocities during the spider or barrels sequence, but then again hasn't yet listened to the score album.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Del Toro screwed up!

Pacific Rim killed any block buster credibility he had.

[Quintus 5,399]

I haven't seen it yet, but I keep noticing it appearing in top 20 film of the year lists.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Yeah but it was a financial flop and not very well reviewed.

[Quintus 5,399]

I know it flopped, but the reviews were strong.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

71% on RT.

I mean it's probably better then Transformers or Battle Ship.

[Jay 37,373]

Pacific Rim is great!

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Naturally. No one would love that movie if it wasn't because of residual love from the LOTR trilogy.

[Jay 37,373]

Yep! If that movie came out first, just like it is now, it would not be considered anything special.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

The movie would have been better. It would have had to have been.

Like Fellowship, it had to be able to stand on its own two legs.

[Quintus 5,399]

70% or 7 out of 10 means good. If it's your kind of movie or genre, then you can even interpret it as really good.

On Metacritic.com the cut-off for getting a nice (sales encouraging) Green label is 60%. Anything below is Yellow, and then Red.

Pacific Rim was generally well received by critics and the audiences (who bothered to see it).

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

7 out of 10 means okay, it means fair.

[Quintus 5,399]

That's a 6.

Video game reviews use the same scale. 6 is always "okay if you like that sort of thing". Expect design flaws and a lack of polish, but there's enjoyment to be had if you look for it.

Otherwise known as the marketing kiss of death.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Trust me. in Holland at schools they mark from 1 to 10.

A 7 is good, but nowhere near memorable, brilliant, classic.

[Quintus 5,399]

That's what I said. It's Good.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Good!

[KK 3,307]

71% on RT.

I mean it's probably better then Transformers or Battle Ship.

And An Unexpected Journey!

Pacific Rim is loads of fun, which is more than can be said for AUJ.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Captain obvious!

[BloodBoal 7,538]